Ankara

Yesterday we took the fast train to Ankara for the day.  It was 90 minutes and on time.  We bought the tickets right before we left with the return in the afternoon.  Our purpose was to check out the trains and also to see the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.  It got big reviews in the Lonely Planet guide.  The book was correct.  Everything was in Turkish or English which made it very easy to read about what we were seeing.  It went from the beginning,  Palaeolithic displays, on up  through history.  The displays were very well done.  Well worth a visit.  (It would take way too much typing for me to try to explain anything.) On the way back to the train we went to what they call the Citadel which is a very old part of Ankara with the thick walls on the hilltop with lots of winding streets.  Of course a little kid offered to show us the way around which ended up at the shopping stalls.  It was still an entertaining walk and not unexpected to find vendors.  Ankara, of course, is a big big city, 4.5 million and we found ourselves happy to be back in our smaller town of Eskisehir.

Ataturk’s mausoleum is in Ankara  but we didn’t make it there this trip.  He lived from 1881 to 1938 and his picture and name is everywhere, stamps, banknotes, statues.   I’m sure some of you history buffs remember him from your history lessons.  He changed his name to Ataturk at some point but the way he is described in the Lonely Planet is “the Turkish state is a result of his energy and vision that without him there would be no Turkey. Ataturk stands as  beacon of statesmanship and proves that radical reform deftly handled, can be hugely successful.” 

The history is this country is truly amazing.  I’m trying to learn a little history as I learn a little Turkish.  My goal is still two words a day!  Someday when we don’t have much to type I’ll put in a few words.        

Today we took pictures of statues around the city.   There are many many more.     

food

those who know us must find it interesting that we haven’t mentioned food except for the number of cafes.  There are a couple of reasons, one we are slowly experimenting so we can adjust to a different country.  We still stick pretty much to bottled water and hot tea (or diet soda) but our contact, Diane, says tap water is fine.  I’m not ready to find out.  We have eaten tomatoes and salads which I’m pretty sure are washed in tap water so the paranoia is probably unnecessary. Fresh tomatoes and cucumbers are abundant.  The second reason is while there is plenty of food without meat we have to carefully read the menu using our dictionary to be sure what we are getting.  A few places have English menus but even then it can be confusing.  I thought I was ordering eggs with peppers this morning and what I got was peppers in a tomato sauce.  It was very good so just another lesson.  Jerry had a tuna sandwich.  We had a mushroom flatbread the other night that was really good.  French fries are big over here. Pastries are everywhere!!  We’re going to have to ration ourselves.  The beauty of a meal in Eskisehir is that you just sit and enjoy the ambience.  I don’t think we’ve had a meal that didn’t take at least 2 hours.  The waiters don’t seem rushed and neither do we.  Believe it or not there are no Starbucks and no Subways.  There are Starbucks in Istanbul, didn’t notice about Subway.  The American fast food places that have made it over here are Burger King, KFC, Dominos, and Pizza Hut. Have to admit we got a diet coke in Burger King.  Menu is just like in the states and they have ice!!!  In case I didn’t post my e-mail address for those who don’t want to comment it is clittle1946@gmail.com You can assume that the blogs are from Carol with a few comments from Jerry tossed in!

I took the lead today in our exploring so I could identify locations when we move from our hotel  into our apartment.  It’s an incredibly easy city to get around but I’m the one who needs landmarks to remember where things are such as the laundry, our favorite breakfast cafe, etc.  We have a map with street names but the street names aren’t identified on street corners very often. I know my way around by looking for the street with the snail or turtle sculptor or the lion bridge over the river. 

Looks like we can move into the apartment next Tues if we can get everything turned on.  Work starts next Wed so then we’ll be busier.

More Turkey info

An interesting piece of conversation at our dinner at the school last Friday that we forgot to mention was about the mayor of Eskisehir.  Apparently the people give him credit for much of the enhancements in their city over the past 10 years.  He’s currently on his third term and is quite a visionary.  He is around 70 and the citizens would like to see him stay around for as long as possible.  We didn’t take good enough pictures to really show the beauty of the city but there are statues and fountains everywhere. 

While this is a very modern town there is an old town which we visited today.  A lot of old ottoman homes are being restored.  We walked through a mosque that was built in 1525.

We bought a dictionary the first day we were here but is really wasn’t very adequate.  We thought small was better to carry around but it didn’t have most of the words we were trying to find so we traded it in for a bigger one.  We’ll try that one tomorrow and see how we get along.  We went to a travel agency to see if we could find a guide to take us around this area which apparently is best explored by car but there aren’t any guides.  The travel agency (the guy spoke a little English) can help us if we want to go to other cities but not his one.  I’ve picked up about 6-8 words of Turkish so we have a long way to go.   

Post comments please

It is easy to post comments just click on the word and when you save you will need to have an account on google or another web tool  like in the drop down profile list. google is easy just go to google and add an  account.  No cost no pressure. We would love to hear from you and get questions, but no nasty comments about the photographer, art is my life.

A Picture is worth a 1000 words unless Jerry took it

 

        

trivia from Turkey

People in Turkey do the two cheek air kisses while shaking hands which I found interesting.

People are very friendly.  When they see you looking at a map on the tram,  English speakers will ask if they can help. (I think more people speak English than I originally thought so that’s a good thing)

We are walking an average of 15000 steps each day. (I actually wore a pedometer just for the fun of it that’s how I know).  Another piece of useless info is that a mile is 2250 steps, that’s Carol steps)

Fewer people cover their hair here than in Istanbul.  I haven’t seen anyone who covers their face.

They do have a loudspeaker announcing prayer time (i think 5 times a day) but we usually only notice it in the evening from the hotel because the window is open.

We could probably do a different cafe each day for the year and not do the same one twice.

We forgot the camera today but I promise pictures tomorrow!

Over breakfast we met a guy from England who is bicycling around the world.  He plans on taking 5 years.  He’s only been at it for a few months. He’s alone now but he has friends joining him for different continents.  Now that’s an adventure!!!

I don’t think I’ve mentioned that everyone is welcome to visit us.  I know it’s an out of the way place but we can offer a bedroom and  reasonable restaurants so once you’re here the costs would be pretty low.  We would love to show off our new home!

Update

I sent out a lot of e-mails with our blog address today to everyone who I thought might want a new link. Please stay in touch through e-mail or comments on the blog.  Jerry still needs to send instructions for some of you having trouble commenting.  We promise not to blog mundane stuff and will do  our best to keep it interesting. 

Interesting two days

Well, a  lot has happened in the last two days.  We both met with our employers late yesterday.  The private school is beautiful. Kindergarten through 10th grade. It has a full sports facility including swimming pool and every modern thing you can think of.  It’s only been open for two years.  We are the first American teachers they have hired.  There are several Turkish English teachers but they wanted native English  speakers. We will have a driver pick us up at our apartment at 8:00 and drop us off after 4:30 Monday through Friday.  School doesn’t start until Sept 20th but we will be in planning meetings with other English teachers starting Sept 1st.  (There’s a four day holiday in there and we’re trying to figure out where to go)  They were surprised that we needed work visas so we thought that might be a deal breaker but they got on the phone and figured out how to do it.  Fortunately we knew to bring our original college diplomas and TEFL certificates which they needed to begin the work on our permits. After our meeting yesterday we were invited to a dinner for local dignitaries at the school.  We felt very honored to be included.  There were about 35 people and some of them had studied in the states and we were able to communicate.  One of the owners of the school had spent his honeymoon in Las Vegas in 2005.

So, we now have two Turkish phones and a beautiful three bedroom apartment overlooking the river right in the central part of town for the next year.  We are describing it as a mini version of Paris.  We haven’t taken any pictures yet but we will soon.  Our apartment is on the 6th floor (yes it has an elevator),partly furnished so we have to buy the basics but wait until you read the best part!!  The whole three bedroom including a balcony and utilities is about 750 Turkish lira a month.  That includes internet and the rest of the essentials.  It’s being painted so we can’t move in until Sept 1st but we have a  very nice hotel in the meantime.  We were hoping for a two bedroom but never expected 3.  To put everything in perspective we will be paid Turkish lira each a month.  So far everything we’ve seen has been very reasonable at best.  There are dozens of cafes within a block or two.  Our contact has a network of everyone we will need for just about everything you can think of. A load of laundry is 6 lira,   washed, dried and folded.  Most of the American movies are here and we’re big movie fans so there are two theaters with about 16 screens.  Some of the movies have dubed but most are in English with Turkish subtitles.

The downside and I’m sure there will be  some but we can’t think of too many right now is we really really need to learn some Turkish.  Without our contact we will be very challenged.  Getting around will be easy but most of the menus are in Turkish.

Enough rambling for now. 

Eskisehir

We’re here but haven’t seen much of the city yet.  Unfortunately we both ate something in Istanbul that didn’t agree with us so we’re stayed close to a bathroom for the day.  My first view of the city was from the floor of the metro (adventure!!) where I got on and immediately passed out.   People around me were kind enough to throw water on me so I woke up pretty quick.  I tend not to drink much on long plane and bus rides because I don’t particularly like bathroom stops but I guess I went a little overboard and really dehydrated myself.  Needless to say I didn’t do anything else yesterday.  Came to the hotel and went to bed.  Hardly anyone speaks English so we are really at the mercy of the woman who recruited us to show us around and learn the city.  Jerry did talk to our employers yesterday and we think we can negotiate for a 5 day work week instead of 6. Yeah!!  Also found out school doesn’t start until later in Sept so we have time to get our apartment and possibly do some more traveling around turkey.  This looks like it will work out even better than we had hoped. 

impressions of Istanbul from our perspective

This is a much happier city than Prague. Bigger than any one we have been to including New York, very vibrant and lots going on.  I would guess that about 10 to 15% of the women cover their heads and only a very few people wear the whole black cover up with the face as well. It is so hot not sure how they can be out but I guess that comes with the territory.  People are friendly but you have to be careful that they aren’t being friendly so they can sell you a carpet!!  On our two hour cruise of the Bosphorus today we saw a lot of high end real estate and big boats, so there is plenty of money here, at least for some.  We’ve seen a few street beggars but not many for a city this big.  We’ve heard so many different languages from tourists we sit next to in restaurants and usually we don’t have a clue where they are from.  Haven’t seen many American’s.  I’m sure they are here. We are settling in around the food.  Today we had a great street cafe lunch, again we made friends with the waiter, but we did leave a bigger tip than usual. We will add pictures from the boat, later today. We have to go to the lobby to get internet and I left the camera in the room. You will see the old and new together in almost ever shot if they are not to blurry.  It was the waves this time, not holding the shoes!    

Tourists in Istanbul

    I was carrying two pairs of shoes and sunglasses when trying to take this picture, sorry all. We’re doing all the regular tourist activities even though it is HOT.  I knew it would be hot but since we are use to Tucson hot I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal.  Hate to admit it but we took the afternoon off from sight seeing so we could cool off in the hotel.  We did a practice run this morning to find the ferry which will take us to a smaller bus station on the Asian side of Istanbul so we can get to Eskisheir on Thursday.  From this station it is only 5 hours not 6.  I didn’t quite get the fact that Istanbul is separated by the Bosphorus into the Asian side and the European side.  I’m sure I learned it at one time but it took a few maps and walks to figure out.  There are a lot of different ferries that cross sides all the time.  You have to be really careful you get on the right one.  We’re in the Sultanahmet area in the European side of Istanbul.  This area has the Grand  Bazaar, spice market, Blue Mosque, Topkapi and most of the other well known attractions.  It’s actually pretty easy to get around and not too far between sights.

The history here is amazing, over 2000 years of construction and stories about its origins. Tomorrow we plan to take a ferry for an hour and half ride down the Bosphorus to view smaller villages.  We could have taken a $60.00 euro(each) tour but once you figure out where you are and the ferry system you can avoid all the high priced tours.  The ferries are really reasonable as are the sights.  You have to be careful to stay off the main street if you don’t want to overpay for food.  There is food just as good on the side streets.  We’ll talk more about costs as we figure out everything but I don’t think Turkey is in the bargain category any more. 

We arrived in Istanbul

After an uneventful but looooog plane ride we arrived in Istanbul Sunday evening.  We left Tucson Saturday morning.  First thing we want to do is thank our friends Judy and Sam Robison for the use of their guest house for the three weeks we were in Tucson.  It was perfect!  Now we’re trying to orient ourselves in a city of 15 million people.  We spent most of today walking around and figuring out how to get to the bus station so we can get to Eskisehir on Thursday.  We need to orient to our jobs on Friday and then we have until Sept 1st to figure out living arrangements etc.  It’s very exciting but a little daunting to be starting a new career in a new city in a different culture.  Wow.  Thanks to all of you who have been reading the blog.  We’ll try to send out instructions on how to comment on the site (we heard some people had trouble), but you can always e-mail me at clittle1946@gmail.com .  I’ll want to hear news from home often.

Well we are on our way!

Almost all of the things on the list got done, but not all and they will be the ones we really need to do.  But we have wonderful home team, family and friends that we want to thanks for all the help and willingness to cover our backsides on these.

Got to get on bye for now,

Only 50 things left to do

Carol’s list is almost completed, however mine is still very long.  Progress not perfection.  We are just two days away from the Big Adventure. Still too many suitcases and other stuff.